[Anchor]
Supreme Court Justice Nominee Kim Sung-soo has faced allegations of tax evasion after living in an expensive apartment in Gangnam, Seoul, with a security deposit lower than the market rate. A sublease agreement was made in which his brother-in-law leased the apartment first and then sublet it to Nominee Kim. However, our reporting revealed that the landlord stated they had never given consent.
Reporter Kim Bo-mi has an exclusive report.
[Reporter]
This 120-square-meter apartment in Dogok-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, is where Supreme Court Justice Nominee Kim Sung-soo lives on a lease.
He has resided there since 2021 and moved two years later to an apartment of the same size on a different floor in the same building.
According to actual transaction prices disclosed by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the lease price around that time was 1.5 billion to 1.6 billion KRW.
In public official property disclosures, Nominee Kim reported the lease security deposits for both apartments as 350 million KRW each.
However, the actual lease contract holder was not Nominee Kim, but his brother-in-law.
It was a sublease agreement in which the brother-in-law leased the property and then sublet it to Nominee Kim.
Looking at the 2023 lease contract, the landlord and the brother-in-law signed a lease agreement with a security deposit of 1.45 billion KRW, and the brother-in-law, as the tenant, set about 750 million KRW—roughly half of that amount—as the total security deposit and rented it to Nominee Kim.
At that time, the security deposit was 350 million KRW with a monthly rent of 800,000 KRW.
However, landlord A, whom SBS met, stated, "It is true that I leased the property to the brother-in-law Mr. Kim, but I had no knowledge whatsoever of the existence of a sublease agreement between the brother-in-law Mr. Kim and Nominee Kim."
Article 629 of the Civil Act stipulates that "a lessee may not sublet the leased object without the consent of the lessor."
Without the landlord's consent, it amounts to an unauthorized sublease.
Meanwhile, Nominee Kim previously lived on a lease in a 59-square-meter apartment in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, from 2011 to 2020, where the landlord was his brother-in-law.
Although the market lease price for this apartment rose from 400 million KRW to 1.1 billion KRW over a decade, Nominee Kim continuously reported the security deposit as 350 million KRW in his public official property disclosures.
An opposition lawmaker raised suspicions of "gift tax evasion," pointing out that the security deposit was much lower than the market rate.
[Ju Jin-woo / People Power Party Lawmaker: He has resided in an expensive Gangnam apartment while paying a fixed security deposit of 350 million KRW. This is a repetitive and habitual tax evasion amounting to hundreds of millions of won.]
Nominee Kim's side responded that they moved into the Dogok-dong apartment together in 2021 at the recommendation of his mother-in-law, who was concerned about her unmarried son, and added that "the nominee is also aware of the tax issues."
Regarding the landlord's claim of not knowing about the sublease, they argued that there was no problem because the brother-in-law's lease contract stated that Nominee Kim's family would reside together.
(Video Reporting: Kim Hak-mo, Lee Seung-hwan, Shin Dong-hwan | Video Editing: Nam Il | Design: Kang Yoon-jung, Hwang Se-yeon)
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